A private security company run by Blackwater founder Erik Prince will send hundreds of fighters to violence-racked Haiti to combat the country’s gang violence problem and restore its tax collection system, according to United States media reports.

Prince, a controversial figure who is a major donor to Donald Trump, revealed details of the new mission for his company, Vectus Global, in an interview with the Reuters news agency on Thursday. A person with knowledge of the plans also confirmed details to The Associated Press news agency.

Prince told Reuters that he expected Vectus Global, his US-based private security firm, which provides logistics, infrastructure and defence, would regain control of gang-held roads and territory in Haiti within about a year.

“One key measure of success for me will be when you can drive from Port-au-Prince to Cap-Haitien in a thin-skinned vehicle and not be stopped by gangs,” he told the news agency.

He said the company would also be involved in creating and implementing a system to tax products crossing Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic once security was restored.

‘Several hundred’ personnel

For years, Haiti has been plagued by violence and insecurity as powerful armed gangs, often with ties to political and business leaders, have vied for influence and territorial control – a situation that worsened dramatically after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

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The deployment of a United Nations-backed, Kenya-led police mission last year has failed to restore stability. Earlier this month, the government announced a three-month state of emergency in several parts of the country in response to the crisis.

Vectus Global began its operations in Haiti in March, Reuters reported, mostly through the use of drones in coordination with a government task force.

But it was set to significantly increase its activities in the coming weeks in coordination with Haitian police, Reuters reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. The source said the company would deploy “several hundred” personnel from the US, Europe and El Salvador who were trained as snipers and intelligence and communications specialists, along with boats and helicopters.

The AP, citing a person with knowledge of the plans, said the deployment would entail “nearly 200” personnel as part of a one-year deal to tackle gang violence. It said Vectus Global would also take a “long-term role” in advising Haiti’s government on restoring tax revenue collection once the gang violence was addressed.

Prince told Reuters that Vectus Global had a 10-year contract with the Haitian government, but would not comment on how much it was worth. The Haitian government has not commented on the reports, but in June, the then-leader of Haiti’s transitional presidential council, Fritz Alphonse Jean, confirmed that the government was using foreign contractors.

The Haitian government has identified restoring tax revenue as a key factor in tackling the country’s problems.

Taxation at the border used to account for half of the country’s tax revenue, but gang control of transport links has hurt trade and badly affected vital government revenue streams, impacting the delivery of basic services, a report commissioned last year by Haiti’s government and international organisations found.

Blackwater’s track record of abuses

The involvement in Haiti of Prince, a former US Navy Seal who is the brother of former US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has prompted concerns, especially given the controversial past of his previous company, Blackwater.

Prince founded Blackwater, a private military company, in 1997. The company gained global notoriety for its actions in Iraq, with four employees convicted over the September 2007 killings of 14 Iraqi citizens in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. The contractors were later pardoned by Trump during his first term in the White House.

Prince sold Blackwater in 2010, but has remained active in the private security industry. Since Trump’s return to the White House, he has consulted with Ecuador on how to combat gang violence, and reached a deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help secure and tax mineral wealth.

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“Resorting to private military companies cannot be seen as a solution to insecurity in Haiti,” Gedeon Jean, head of Haiti’s Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research, told AP. “The use of private companies has often resulted in human rights violations.”

Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, head of the Haiti programme at Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, told AP that Vectus Global’s mission in Haiti would violate US law unless it had permission from Washington to proceed.

He said its involvement was more likely to complicate the crisis in Haiti than fix it.

“⁠In the absence of a coherent, jointly led Haitian and international strategy, the use of private firms is more likely to fragment authority and sovereignty than to advance resolution of the crisis,” he said.

A Trump administration official said the US government had no involvement with the hiring of Vectus Global by the Haitian government, and was not funding or exercising any oversight of the mission, the AP reported.

Earlier this year, a team from US security firm Studebaker Defense ceased its operations in Haiti after two personnel were abducted, likely due to corrupt police officials, The New York Times reported.